The present invention relates to gas turbine engines such as turbojet and turbofan engines and more particularly to a damper for damping motion of an oil tube in a prespecified position relative to the engine. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, rigidly positioning an oil tube may cause stresses to be reacted in a weak link, such as an oil tube. Alternatively, mounting a tube without any dampening whatsoever causes the tube itself to experience all forces and becomes life cycle limited. Tube mounting locations must be chosen to provide adequate support yet allow for thermal growth between such relatively fixed locations.
The extremely harsh and stressful environment of a gas turbine engine imposes an additional difficulty in that severe and rapidly changing dynamic and temperature stresses are routinely developed and it is necessary that accessory tubes, such as oil tubes, must be able to exist in such a stressed environment. Additionally, it has been determined that a tube damper exposed to such an environment must be fabricated of a wear resistant material, such as metal, which can take the harsh, high temperature environment without deterioration and at the same time repetitively provide the requisite dampening. Such a tube damper needs to also be as lightweight as possible and be capable of mounting with a minimum of changes to the engine, using existing hardware, if possible.